A news item appeared on Feb 19 that Cornwall City Councillor Andre Rivette wants fluoride reintroduced into Cornwall municipal water, citing comments from the medical officer of health that fluoride-free Calgary recorded an increase in childhood dental cavities. The news media reported that University of Calgary recently conducted a study on childhood dental cavities in BOTH Edmonton and Calgary, involving grade-2 level children. The study advised that “BOTH cities recorded dramatic increases in the occurrence of childhood dental cavities” and Edmonton actually ADDS fluoride to their drinking water.

Perhaps Councillor Rivette and his friends at the EOHU may care to explain the dramatic increase in dental cavities in fluoridating Edmonton!! The news media in fact reported on it!!

Historically, it is a known fact that somewhere between kids starting school and their pre-teen years, Mother Nature causes their ‘baby teeth’ to fall out, replaced by permanent teeth. Grade-2 kids are at an age where their ‘baby’ teeth begin to fall out. In the process, the human body reduces the amount of nutrients and minerals to ‘baby’ teeth that are on the way out. So it is perhaps a foregone conclusion that despite Edmonton adding fluoride to their city water, that grade-2 level children’s ‘baby’ teeth could have cavities prior to falling out.

Perhaps there’s not enough fluoride in the toothpaste, or perhaps people are not applying sufficient fluoridated toothpaste to their teeth at high enough frequency. However, tubes of fluoridated toothpaste carry a warning, ‘DO NOT SWALLOW’.

While Councillor Rivette is panicking about Calgary, Vancouver gave up fluoridated city water over 30-years ago . . .  and over the past 20-years has recorded an identical rate of childhood dental cavities as fluoridating Toronto. With regard to Councillor Rivette seeking to reinstate hydrofluorosilicic acid into Cornwall city water, let us recall that a concerned citizen paid a fee to invoke the Freedom of Information Act to legally require Health Canada to release data attesting to the safety and dental effectiveness of hydrofluorosilicic acid. CFN actually carried a link to the reply from Health Canada that they had zero information on file to attest either the safety or dental effectiveness of hydrofluorosilicic acid. Prior to that reply going public, Cornwall’s medical officer of health made statement about the compound to Cornwall City Council.

However, a minority of Cornwall City Council advised that they will only take directives on the fluoride matter from the medical officer of health, perhaps implying that with them, a statement from Health Canada obtained under the freedom of information act in regard to hydrofluorosilicic acid would be of zero relevance, despite Health Canada being unable to directly provide information to attest to the dental effectiveness of hydrofluorosilicic acid. If Health Canada is unable to provide such information, neither can the medical officer of health.

The last time the fluoride issue came up in Cornwall, the issue of fluoride pollution from Massena aluminum smelters also came up and was dismissed on public radio by a representative from EOHU that “it occurred in another century!” However, study dating from 2008 and commissioned by the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne revealed fluoride hotspots within a 20-km radius of the aluminum smelters . . . except zero information about fluoride pollution at City of Cornwall…

The intake for Cornwall’s municipal water is located right across from an aluminum smelter and it is unknown as to the amount of fluoride that entered Cornwall’s water supply at the intake pipe. Except that both Cornwall and the Mohawk region record a very high rate of disease that could be caused by excess fluoride intake.